I can’t believe that horse is gray. I just CAN’T. Could he be a chimera?
My personal experience with gray horses that carry a copy of the creme gene is that they express gray much later in life. I know of a buckskin gelding that didn’t show any signs of gray until he was nearly 10
Cream doesn’t really affect when gray starts. When gray starts is a factor of the gray, both in that particular line of horses , ie born half gray already, or very obviously gray through the whole body on the first shed, vs no real signs until 4-5 or so, and also whether the horse is Gg or GG, with GG graying faster, all else equal.
Whether buckskin or palomino, gray still has its tell-tale signs, such as the saturated pigment, and that’s particularly evident in the buckskins who have darker legs to begin with. The might not start looking gray to the outsider until later, since their coat is already diluted, but the signs are there at birth, unlike this colt.
Interesting. The buckskin/gray I knew must have been an outlier then.
10 is not totally an outlier, but things need to be taken in the context of the foal color - newborn, after drying off, before bleaching starts (which can start fairly quickly). Many grays have their lower legs be a lot slower to gray than their bodies, and I’ve seen many grays who are clearly gray in the body, but much less obviously so in the points. With a dilute, the coat already has lighter hairs, so the graying progression can be a lot harder to see, especially if they start out with a more roan look as opposed to dappling.
Jeepers, I wish my 3 Isabellas darkened up like that! They were born pale and got paler. I’s much prefer a grey.
DNA results are back and our palomino gelding has now tested gg - NO grey. I have emailed Animal Genetics in Florida several times, requesting an explanation as to why the original color DNA test with them came back as Gg and why it is now gg. No response. Might be switching to UC Davis I guess! 
And just to clarify, there was absolutely ZERO chance of any cross contamination, etc. when we pulled mane hair on this boy. He was the only pony we pulled hair for testing that day and we had NO other greys on the property at that time. (we owned two other greys during that time but they were both out for training)
Huh. So was this new test a repeat at AG, or was this through UCD?
Any possibility he is a chimera?
Both.
No. He has no brindle markings or patches. He simply looks like a plain, old palomino. My guess is that Animal Genetics either screwed up on the test, cross contamination happened at the lab…or didn’t even run it as he had a 75% chance of being grey. I hate to think the later. Unfortunately, they don’t seem too keen on responding to my emails, so I do not have an answer.
Ok, so it really does seem like AG screwed up somehow. It’s odd that they seemed so quick in offering a free re-test, but now are ignoring you.
